Debiasing the framing effect in younger and older adults' medical decision making

Abstract

The framing effect is a common decisional bias. In the current study, the framing effect and its avoidance via a debiasing questionnaire was studied with younger and older adults making decisions regarding lung cancer treatment. Participants received three cancer scenarios framed in either survival or mortality terms, with scenarios presented in cumulative probability, interval probability, and life expectancy format. There were two between-subjects factors and one within-subjects factor. Younger adults exhibited the framing effect with the cumulative and interval probability formats. No framing effect was found in the debias condition. Older adults exhibited the framing effect with the interval probability format. Older adults in the debiasing condition showed the framing effect with the cumulative and interval probability formats. Older adults who had received or provided care and those who knew someone with cancer were less likely to exhibit the framing effect. Frame was the only significant predictor of treatment choice.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 4 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.